


Here's Our Hands Against Our Hearts

by echolalaphile, MilesHibernus



Series: Journeys End [3]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Bastardizing Shakespeare, M/M, Much Ado About Nothing, The Mortifying Ordeal of Being Known, We all agree Crowley is depressive right
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-07-12 07:40:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19942582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/echolalaphile/pseuds/echolalaphile, https://archiveofourown.org/users/MilesHibernus/pseuds/MilesHibernus
Summary: "I will swear by it that you love me; and I will make him eat it that says I love not you."





	Here's Our Hands Against Our Hearts

**Author's Note:**

> OK. If you are _not_ the kind of nerd who knows "Much Ado About Nothing" backwards and forwards, we strongly suggest that you have a copy of the play handy, open to Act IV, Scene I, when everyone has left the chapel except Beatrice and Benedick.
> 
> thanks to elroi for the beta, and general Shakespearean co-screaming.

It happened to him once in a while, maybe once or twice a century, even three if it had been particularly trying. In the past it hadn’t been hard to hide it from Aziraphale; when you see someone at most a few times a year, spending three or four days incapacitated by crying1 slips under the radar easily.

He’d been feeling it in his skin, which wouldn’t have been a problem before. It was just that he didn’t _have_ three or four days to spare; since their lunch at the Ritz, the longest time they’d spent apart was just under thirty-six hours. He’d muttered something to Aziraphale about needing a few days to himself when he dropped the angel at the bookshop; he suspected that would get him three days at the absolute outside before Aziraphale discovered a restaurant or a first edition that he just _had_ to tell Crowley about. Well, he’d have to cram his breakdown into two and a half days. The end of the world had wound up being less traumatizing than the Spanish Inquisition, all things considered. Surely it was possible. 

* * *

It wasn’t possible, of course. 

“What, angel?” Crowley said. Snapped really, in the hopes that the tone would cover how rough his voice was.

“Oh,” said Aziraphale, sounding a bit taken aback even over the phone. “Well I know you said you wanted a few days to yourself and of course I’m happy to oblige, but it has been _three_ and I just discovered that the new restaurant we were looking at has moved up its opening, and you did say you wanted to try it with me—”

And here, Crowley made his fatal mistake. In wanting to erase the little note of hurt in Aziraphale’s voice, he spoke before getting a firm grasp on his own. What he _meant_ to say was, “I’d rather wait a few days until they settle in.” What actually emerged from his mouth was, “I’d rather _oh hell_ ” as a sob forced its way out past the words. He didn’t drop the phone, by dint of squeezing it hard enough that the plastic casing creaked ominously.

“Crowley,” said Aziraphale after a thoughtful pause, “are you quite all right?”

“I’m fine,” said Crowley experimentally, and Aziraphale sighed.

“I do wish you wouldn’t lie to me.”

“I will _be_ fine?” said Crowley, and that was his second mistake, missing an opportunity to remind Aziraphale that he was a demon and lying was what demons did. 

There was a burst of power and suddenly Aziraphale was there, plucking the phone receiver from Crowley’s hand and putting it back in its cradle. “Dear boy, have you been crying all this time?” Aziraphale asked carefully, and Crowley slumped back in his chair in humiliation, wishing desperately for his glasses.2 At least he wasn’t blushing.

“Yes,” he said, defeated. “And I’m planning to keep it up for a bit longer, if you don’t mind.”

“I rather do. It’s selfish of me no doubt.”

His eyes resolutely closed, Crowley said, “Sorry, angel, you don’t get a vote.” _You have no reason, I do it freely_ , he thought wildly.

Aziraphale sighed again. “I suppose it was inevitable. Things do build up, rather.”

“Right, yes, that’s it exactly, can’t be fixed so—” and even Crowley wasn’t sure what was supposed to come next but it didn’t matter because he had to stop talking anyway to hold onto his control.

“Isn’t there anything that will help?” 

Crowley laughed, and the sound was painful even to him. “I’m sure there is, but who am I going to ask?”

“May a friend do it?” asked Aziraphale softly, and if Crowley had been anything like on his game he would have consciously recognized the phrasing, but as it was his mind threw up its metaphorical hands and presented him with, “It is a friend’s office, but not yours.”

The silence that followed stretched long enough that he opened his eyes. Aziraphale stood in the little space formed by the side of Crowley’s chair and his desk, with a look on his face that Crowley had seen only a few times before in their long acquaintance. It was a look that said _I gave it away_ or _Well, I suppose we_ **_could_ ** _come to some sort of arrangement_ , or _I can’t have you risking your life_ , or _Dear boy, I’ve known you for six thousand years, I am quite capable of impersonating you._

Deliberately, Aziraphale said, “I do love nothing in the world so well as you.” Crowley’s breath caught in his throat. “Is not that strange?”

“As...as strange as the thing I know not,” he said. Aziraphale bit his lip, and Crowley rushed on, “Angel, you can’t—”

“I think you’ll find I can, now,” said Aziraphale. “I am quite serious. Given how I’ve behaved I would hardly blame you for needing a bit more than my word, but nonetheless you have it. ”

“Will you not eat your word?”

“With no sauce that can be devised to it.” Aziraphale smiled suddenly. “I protest, I love thee.”

Crowley knew the play as well as Aziraphale did. But there were some things he couldn’t say, not even in this half-earnest way. “You have stayed me in a happy hour,” he said instead, softly.

“Somehow I don’t think you were about to protest anything, dear boy,” said Aziraphale, his tone too fond to bear. “And that’s quite all right. Come now, that chair can’t be comfortable, wouldn’t you like to lie down properly?”

"If I wasn’t, it's only because none of me is left to do so," Crowley muttered, back to Aziraphale as he concentrated on levering himself out of the chair.

Without quite meaning it, he ended up standing much closer to Aziraphale than he normally did. The last time they’d been anything like this close, it had been over how _nice_3 Crowley might be. “Come,” said Aziraphale, “bid me do anything for thee.”

Crowley knew they needed to have a Conversation. He knew quite well that the end of a crying jag was no time to make important decisions. 

On the other hand, _making good decisions_ was hardly a hallmark of his life and he saw no reason to start now. “Come to bed with me.”

Aziraphale blinked and said, “Are you certain that’s a good idea?”

“You kill me to deny it,” said Crowley. 

“I really think—”

Crowley smirked. “There is no love in you.”

Aziraphale took a short breath, let it out, and said with a perfectly straight face, “I rather thought it might be in you. If you like.”

The smirk fell off Crowley's face and shattered on the floor. "...I. Really?"

Aziraphale's fingers spasmed. "Not if you'd rather not, my dear, I'm—"

" _No._ I mean, yes. I mean. I can't think of anything I'd like more. As surely as I have a thought, or—" He swallowed, and held out his hand. "—a soul."

Aziraphale smiled like the sun as he reached forward and gripped Crowley's hand. "Enough. I am engaged."

* * *

Aziraphale traced his fingers down the side of Crowley’s face, and Crowley let his eyes half-close at the pleasure of it. “By this hand, I love thee,” Aziraphale murmured.

Crowley couldn’t help himself. He couldn’t have stopped it faced with a bathtub full of holy water. “Use it for my love,” he said earnestly, “some other way than swearing by it.” He managed a serious expression for all of two seconds before the laughter broke out of him like a tide, stemmed only when Aziraphale took him at his word.

**Author's Note:**

> 1Human bodies have physiological limitations, and Crowley’s body was essentially human, built from the same clever molecules as any person on the street, but he had two things no human did: the ability to wish away his limitations, and a lifespan that was, so far, sixty times longer than the longest a normal human might expect. Over that kind of span, things can get to be a bit _much_.back
> 
> 2Not that they would help a great deal; Aziraphale could see through them for exactly the same reason Crowley could wear them at night. But it was the principle of the thing.back
> 
> 3Not at all nice. He wanted to be sure that was remembered, even if it was not written down.back
> 
> *****
> 
> So didja all know that David Tennant played Benedick on stage, opposite Catherine Tate? Here's [Part One](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OS1wo_8L3Yc), and [Part Two](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBEyNB5pFhI).


End file.
